Chovanec for Okamura's removal from parliament leadership

ČTK |

12 February 2018

Prague, Feb 11 (CTK) - Czech Social Democrat (CSSD) acting head Milan Chovanec will support the dismissal of Freedom and Direct Democracy (SPD) leader Tomio Okamura from the post of lower house deputy chairman over his comments on a concentration camp for the Roma, he told public Czech Television (CT) on Sunday.

"If there is a vote for his dismissal, I will vote in support and I will recommend this to the CSSD lower house group," Chovanec said.

The dismissal of the right-wing populist Okamura from the parliament leadership was first proposed by the Christian Democrats (KDU-CSL) earlier this week.

Unless the ANO movement supports the plan, there is no chance of removing Okamura from the post, Chovanec noted.

SPD MP Radek Koten, head of ther lower house security committee, told CT that the KDU-CSL proposed to sack Okamura only to score points. He rejected the opinion that the SPD is an extremist party.

A Roma internment camp operated in Lety, south Bohemia, in the Nazi-controlled Protectorate of Bohemia and Moravia.

In January, Okamura said the Lety camp had not been fenced. Later he admitted that there was a fence, but insisted that no one guarded it and the inmates could freely move around.

The Prague Jewish Community, the Museum of Roma Culture and the Lidice Memorial called his words Holocaust denial.

Prime Minister Andrej Babis (ANO) said on Wednesday that Okamura apologised in a sufficient way.

A deputy head of the lower house of Czech parliament can be dismissed on proposal of at least 80 lower house deputies if a majority of the deputies participating in the vote support the proposal.

ANO has 78 deputies in the 200-seat lower house, the SPD has 22, the CSSD 15 and the KDU-CSL 10.

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